The Cipher's Daughter
by Pickwick12
Summary: This is a companion piece to "The Protector's Daughter." The one connection missing in Chloe's life is the father she's never met, a man called Harold Pheasant.
1. Connections and Cipers

**Connections and Ciphers**

The day I walked out of Juilliard was the day I decided to search for my father.

I didn't drop out, nothing so dramatic as that. I graduated with a degree in composition and a position awaiting me with the New York Symphony. But something was missing. To understand why, you have to understand what it is that I love about music.

I wasn't a prodigy. I was a normal kid who hung around my mother's dressing room. She was an opera singer. One day, when I was barely old enough to read, I picked up some of her music. With my fingers, I traced the lines and bars and funny-looking dots that make up a musical score. "That's how I know what to sing," my mother told me, as she put on the last of her makeup.

That night, during the concert, I tried and tried to wrap my brain around what I'd learned that day. How in the world, I wondered, did the lines and dots become the sounds? Some adults seem to believe that children don't think, but they're mistaken.

It wasn't until I got home that it hit me. See, when I was very small, too young to remember, my uncle had given me a book about the human body. Even though I couldn't understand the text, I pored over the pictures day after day, year after year, understanding more and more of them as I got older.

One of my favorites was the painting of the brain at work. The artist had illustrated the synapses and pathways, and I was entranced by the abstract beauty. "That's how you think," Mom said. I couldn't understand how those strange, wonderful connections in my picture could become something I thought or said. "No one really understands it," she reassured me, "but the connections make it possible."

_The connections make it possible. _That phrase came back to me the night of the concert. That's what it was, I realized. The bars and notes were the synapses of the music, and the symphony was the brain.

As I grew older, I learned that music notes are the symbols we choose to represent the tones we sing and play, but I still believe in the connections. Just as connections in my mind allow me to write this, shared notes on a page allow an orchestra to perform a concerto.

That's why I had to find my father.

The thing is, connections aren't only on the inside. I like to play a game whenever I see a rope or a chain or a hook or a pulley—anything that's used for connecting things. I imagine what that connection would sound like if it were music. Some of my first compositions—the first ones anybody noticed—were inspired by the most mundane objects imaginable. Then I decided to write a piece based on my own connections—to my mother, to the uncle who'd died before I was born, to my grandparents from Scotland. That's when the trouble started.

I had composer's block, or so I thought. I took time off, drank coffee, listened to other people's music, but it wasn't enough. I finally had to confront the reality that I was missing a connection. I had a father, but I had no idea who he was. I couldn't write the piece without knowing. More than that, I knew I couldn't go on if I didn't try.

* * *

"I'm sorry, Ma'am, but we have no record of him." She was at least five years younger than I was, chewing a giant piece of bubblegum, with her hair in one of those pineapple topknots. None of that would have mattered if she'd have acted like she cared.

"That's not possible," I intoned patiently, picturing a cello in my mind and trying to mimic its depth, clarity, and tranquility. "He's listed right here on my birth certificate."

"Fine," she finally conceded, "I'll look again." A second click through her computer yielded the same results: A list of Harold Pheasants, none of whom were the right age to be my father.

"Is it possible you've lost his information?" I asked hopefully.

"Honey," she said, "I'm looking at a database of social security numbers. If he exists, he's here.

I nodded in frustrated agreement, looking around at the yellowed parquet floor, the rusted metal furniture, and the gray curtains that framed dirty windows. I felt a surge of pity for the girl behind the desk. After all, I only had to come once; it was her daily job.

"Thanks—thanks for your help," I said, turning to go, much to the visible delight of the line that stretched out behind me.

"Good luck," the girl said to my back.

I made my way back to the subway, feeling hollow, but at the same time not surprised. After all, it had seemed far too easy when I'd called the executor of my mother's will and gotten an address for a place that could find my dad for me. All those years and all it would take was a trip to a government office in the city—too good to be true.

The birth certificate in my hand seemed like more, suddenly. It was no longer just the routine, official record of my birth; it was a mystery, a cipher. Two things I knew to be true: I had a father, and that father had claimed to be named "Harold Pheasant" the entire time he was with my mother. I could infer a third set of possibilities; either he'd been lying the whole time, or he'd changed his name and somehow erased his original one. The first seemed the most likely by far. But why would a quiet, unassuming computer programmer have any reason to lie about who he was?


	2. Detecting

**Detecting**

Harold Finch was perturbed.

He hadn't had a hit on his "Pheasant" alias for years, and the last one had been the result of a typographically-challenged government clerk miss-keying "Pleasant." This one was legitimate, though.

He called it one, but he really meant several. Over the course of a couple of days, the alias had been searched in everything from legal databases to Google and finally on a government census site, the kind only official employees could access. The search hadn't exactly been systematic, but it had been persistent. He didn't even need the Machine to tell him. His own software was more than sufficient to track any hits on his aliases.

He pushed his glasses up on his nose, sat back in his chair, and glanced over at his associate, who was running between library stacks in a highly undignified way, playing tug-of-war with Bear. Mr. Reese finally came over, smiling and breathing heavily. Bear, like an obedient child, trailed behind, his ears alert.

"Someone's definitely looking for me—well, one of the versions of me," Finch announced.

"Why didn't the Machine flag it, then?" Reese asked, looking genuinely worried.

"That's the curious thing," Harold replied. "The Machine must know the searcher means me no harm."

"In our line of work, any attempt to pry is dangerous."

Harold had to admit that the point was well made. "Normally I'd agree with you, Mr. Reese, but the Machine obviously doesn't. I have to trust the programming." Harold shook his head. "I'm as in the dark as you are."

"What are we going to do?"

"I'm treating this like a simple mystery—hacking as much information as I can about the digital footprint of the computers used to make the initial searches. That will give me something to go on."

"Goodness," said Reese, "I'd have thought one of your programs would instantly give you height, weight, and a photo of anyone who ever keyed a version of your name into a search engine."

He was teasing, but Finch didn't mind. "That, Mr. Reese," he said drily, "is beyond even me."

Reese left for home, but Harold stayed at his computer. He hadn't told his associate, but his first order of business was to rule out Root. On the surface, the search seemed far below her methods or capabilities, but he wouldn't have put it past her to purposefully try to confuse him. Still, the Machine knew Root, and this didn't feel like her anyway. There was always some kind of method to her madness, and if she wanted to see her favorite opponent, she had plenty of other ways to contact him (more was the pity). Finch crossed her off his mental list after a few moments.

Next, he traced the Google searches. The IP address indicated a public computer at the New York Public Library, Lincoln Center. Of course it couldn't be any more specific than that, he thought, with a small amount of disappointment. Still, it was valuable to know that the searcher had been in the city.

Harold got up and stretched his stiff frame. He didn't usually drink green tea so late in the evening, but he didn't anticipate going to bed at any reasonable hour, so he took out his beloved matcha and put on the electric kettle.

While the water came to a boil, he went into his room at the back of the library and changed into a sweater, flannel pants, and a dressing gown. This took him far longer, he thought, than it should have, but the annoyance was familiar. Ever since his injury, tasks he had previously taken for granted had become painstaking and tedious. Once ensconced in comfortable clothing, Harold returned to his desk and turned on "The Flower Duet" from _Lakme_, letting it wash over him while he slowly blended his thick tea and prepared himself for a long night's detective work.


	3. Mr Hawk

Mr. Hawk

I keyed the 221 extension onto my touchscreen, hoping Mr. Hawk was in. He was the attorney who had helped me get the money from my inheritance—my trust fund, if I'm honest, but I never really liked to talk about that. I'd never met him.

At my mother's will hearing, when I was eighteen and wondering what I was going to do, an impeccably-dressed secretary had done all the work, and I'd left in a daze with all the information proving I was a millionaire. I hadn't contacted the office again until I'd decided to search for my father two days before. Once again, as if six years hadn't passed, I'd heard the voice of the same secretary I'd met before. She was the one who'd given me the name of the agency who'd unsuccessfully searched for Harold Pheasant.

That's why I'd decided to use Mr. Hawk's direct extension this time. My mother was the one who'd given it to me. I suppose all mothers who know they're going to die have strange talks with their daughters—you'd think it would be all the huge, important things, but it goes from how to cook a chicken properly to the meaning of life to cleaning tile grout in no time at all, at least, it did with my mother. I wrote down everything she said, and when she got too weak to speak, I told it back to her so that she would know I was prepared, that I could live a good life.

One of the pieces of information she shared was the telephone number for Hawk and Associates. They would take care of the will and the money, she said, but then she pulled me close and made me write down 221, Mr. Hawk's personal extension. "He's our friend," she said, "and if you have an emergency, he'll help." She seemed a little bit overdramatic to be talking about a lawyer, and I wondered if her medication was affecting her mind, but I dutifully wrote the number down and read it back to her.

I'd never used the extension. Like I said before, I'd never needed to, because the secretary took care of everything, and my questions after the will reading were answered over email by an office assistant.

This time, I'd followed the process my mother had given me. Instead of dialing the receptionist, I clicked the number 5, which wasn't in the automated menu. I heard a beep, and then I pressed 221.

"Hello?" The voice at the other end was so soft it was almost a whisper.

"Hi," I said, suddenly feeling foolish. "Is—is Mr. Hawk there?"

"Who's this?" asked the voice, and I wondered if I had the wrong number.

"My name is Chloe Fordham," I answered. "I was wondering if Mr. Hawk could help me with something. It's an emergency. Are you him?" I felt more foolish than ever, and I was a bit afraid that Mr. Hawk wouldn't think finding my father was an emergency, but I had to try. After all, lawyers have access to things like legal databases and records. He might even know my father's real name.

"I'll have to take a message for Mr. Hawk," said the whispery voice. "He's a little bit busy right now." I tried not to let the immediate disappointment I felt overtake me. It was just a message. I'd waited this long and could wait longer.

"Ok," I said. "Please tell him I need his help to look for my father. His name was Harold Pheasant."


	4. Hunting Pheasant

Hunting Pheasant

"Who was that?" asked Harold, endeavoring to keep his tone level.

"She said her name is Chloe Fordham and that her father was named Harold Pheasant," answered Mr. Reese with a distinctly raised eyebrow, which was about as worked up as he ever got about anything.

"For-Fordham?" Harold nearly choked on his tea.

"Uh huh," his associate corroborated.

He stared Mr. Reese for a full minute. "It must be some kind of a setup. Root is, heaven help us, on the loose again. Maybe she has something to do with it. She must have gotten that name somewhere and decided to use it against me." He rubbed his nose agitatedly, sitting back down at his desk and ignoring Bear, who seemed to sense his disturbance and came over to nuzzle his hand.

Mr. Reese leaned nonchalantly against a bookshelf. "You seem upset, Harold. That's not like you. Do you want me to get Shaw to shadow you for a while? I can take over the Numbers on my own."

"That's entirely unnecessary," the shorter man snapped, then immediately shook his head and turned to face his friend. "I'm sorry, that tone was uncalled for. Let me be clear: I'm not worried, simply confused. I need time to sort this out. For now, give me the Hawk phone. I'll trace the call and figure out where it originated."

"Ok," said Mr. Reese, staring at Harold with the gaze that always managed to seem both benign and penetrating.

"You don't need to worry about me," reiterated Finch.

"I know you can take care of yourself," answered his partner's whispery voice, "but I also know how you hate to have people making personal—inquiries."

"Well, I hate it when I don't know who they are," answered Harold drily. "Once I've figured it out, I can use it to my advantage." He took the phone from his associate's outstretched hand and started paging through its menu.

Mr. Reese took his leave without further comment, and Finch proceeded to plug the phone in and download its data. The number that the call had originated from seemed to belong to a perfectly ordinary iPhone, and that unsettled him more than something more obviously complicated would have done. The caller's carrier was AT&T, and he quickly hacked into the company's website. He had done the hard work long before, so all he had to do was quickly route his browser to the carrier's records. Chloe Fordham—There was no trail of ownership. The phone, plainly and simply, was in the name of a Chloe Fordham, and the purchase date was the previous year.

Harold peered at his screen, as if by scowling he could get it to reveal more information. The sheer simplicity of things was making him feel stymied. Crime was complex, and criminals left trails. Root never did anything the simple way if she could do it the ridiculously intricate way. But this was nothing like that. This was as if—as if a real, actual person named Chloe Fordham was trying to contact him.

He went to a search engine and typed in the name, expecting nothing much to come up. That, at least, would suggest the use of a common-sounding name as an alias. To his surprise, he was instantly greeted by a group of articles about a promising young composer, a Juilliard-educated pianist. He did an image search, but he had no way of knowing which of the women who popped up was the Chloe who was meant to be searching for him.

_Maybe someone has stolen the musician's identity _he thought. That, of course, led to the question of why, if that had happened, the Machine hadn't flagged it. He shook his head. Calling the number back wasn't his first choice, not with so many blanks yet to fill in, but he decided to chance it.

He picked up the Hawk phone and punched in the numbers. In a moment, he heard the click of the call picking up. "Hello?" The voice on the other end was female.

"Hello, this is Mr. Hawk," he said.

"Oh—" she sounded breathless. "This is Chloe Fordham. I was wondering if you could help me."

Using the information he'd gained, Harold was now able to track the girl's location while they spoke. She was in the city, at a Manhattan Starbucks. Nothing too sinister there, it didn't seem.

"What can I do for you?" he asked, trying to sound businesslike, the way Mr. Hawk might sound if he were an actual high-powered attorney.

"I'm looking for my dad, and I'm not having any luck finding him," she answered. "I don't know a lot about finding missing people. Your secretary gave me the address of an agency, but they couldn't find anything. I'm really sorry to bother you. This is—really strange for me."

_Me too _Harold wanted to say, but he refrained.

"What was your mother's name?" he asked.

"Charlotte Fordham," she answered, sounding puzzled. "I'm sorry; since your office did the will, I thought you would know."

Finch forced himself to breathe slowly. "And your father's name?"

"I—she—I mean, Mom always said his name was Harold Pheasant, but no one can find him, so I've started to wonder if that wasn't really his name. I sound crazy…" She trailed off weakly.

"What was your mother's favorite part to sing?" asked Harold suddenly.

"Hippolyta, from _A Midsummer Night's Dream_ by Britten," she answered readily, "but she always said Erda from _Siegfried _in her publicity because her agent said it sounded better."

"Oh," said the small man. She knew. She knew the thing no one knew.

"Are—you really Mr. Hawk?" the girl asked curiously.

"No," he answered. "I'm Harold Pheasant."


	5. Code

Code

I nearly dropped my phone.

"I don't believe you," I said quickly. "I think you're messing with me."

"I have a hard time believing it myself," said the dry voice on the other end.

"Prove it," I said.

"Do you have a book about human anatomy?" he asked.

"Yes, I answered. "I've had it for ages. My uncle gave it to me. I had another uncle who died before I was born. He bought it, and my Uncle Greg gave it to me when I was little."

"Do you have it with you?" He asked again, insistent.

"No?" I said, bewildered and getting a little bit annoyed. I always kept the book at home as a keepsake, but I didn't have it out with me.

"Do you remember what's on page 54?" he asked. The answer was an extremely detailed diagram of the human digestive system, with full descriptions of each body part, but I knew that wasn't what he was asking. Certain words were underlined. When I was eight, I'd noticed and spent hours trying to figure out why. Uncle Greg said he didn't know, and my mother couldn't figure it out either. I'd finally written all the underlined words on a page, each on a different line, and realized that the first letter of each word, all together, spelled something.

thisbookisagiftfromyourlovinguncle

"Some of the words are underlined," I said, "but it just comes out to, 'This book is a gift from your loving uncle.'"

"Exactly," he answered. "At the time I purchased it, I had been told by reliable sources that you were the child of a friend. I used "uncle" as an endearment, rather than a literal term. I thought the code might amuse you someday. How could I possibly know about that if your uncle who gave you the book didn't even know?"

"But how can I know you're not lying?" I asked, trying to wrap my brain around the information. "I'm just—not sure."

"DNA is usually considered somewhat conclusive," he said. "Remember, Miss Fordham, you're the one who's been looking for me. It's not the other way around."

"I—know," I said. There were lots of other thoughts swirling in my head, but none I felt comfortable communicating.

"How about this?" he said. "There's a clinic on the corner of Fourteenth and Adams in Manhattan. If we meet there, you can watch me give a sample and make sure I don't tamper with anything. It's a public area, lots of people going in and out. I couldn't do anything untoward there, even if I wanted to. You can provide a sample as well, and they'll run comparisons. That way, you'll know for sure."

"Ah—ok," I said. I couldn't really think of a reason to object.

"Very well," he said. "We appear to be at an impass for the time being, so I'll say goodbye until tomorrow." My phone clicked, and the call was over.

I put the phone down and sat back on the coffee shop's brown leather couch, confused and unsure of myself. One phone call had potentially changed everything, and for the first time, I was presented with the very real possibility that I might be about to find a connection I'd been missing my entire life.

I had a million questions I wanted to ask and a million feelings I wanted to feel, but I was determined not to care about any of them until I knew for sure if the cryptic voice really belonged to my father.


End file.
